Friday, May 23, 2008

Is This Still a Campaign, or Would She Admit It's Now Performance Art?

“People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa,” where she came in third, behind Mr. Obama and former Senator John Edwards, Mrs. Clinton said. When asked why that would be she said she did not know; primaries sometimes go on a long time and there was no reason she should give up hers prematurely.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” Mrs. Clinton said, dismissing the idea of dropping out.

She's since apologized (to the Kennedys, not Obama), but even if there's nothing historically inaccurate about what she says, the subtext is barely even sub-: Hey, he could get assassinated. Why shouldn't I stay in?

This is, in a word, gross. As Andrew Sullivan writes:

Since some seem unwilling to point out why this remark was more than unfortunate, it is worth remembering that we have the first black candidate for president. You only have to spend a few minutes talking with African-Americans about this campaign to discover that the fear that Obama could be assassinated is very much on their minds. It is in everyone's subconscious, especially Michelle Obama's. To refer to the June assassination of Bobby Kennedy in the context of reasons to stay in this interminable race against Barack Obama is therefore catastrophically inappropriate. Coming after her pitch for "white votes", it is reckless.

I honestly think it's becoming a litmus test for sanity, whether or not you think Clinton has been stepping over lines in her quest for the presidency. If she said so many things that demanded immediate apology about a Republican, she'd look like a loose-cannon candidate. To say them about a black Democrat...

Just as she's electoral poison generally, Clinton -- with her army of increasingly unhinged apologists -- has predictably poisoned her own party. If her supporters refuse to back Obama in the fall, after nearly every crass division has been exploited by her, not him, they will go down in history. Books will be written about them. They'll make the Nader supporters of 2000 look like a shining example of voter integrity and brilliance.

4 Comments:

She also seems to be pushing this ridiculous Florida/Michigan thing to the brink. If she somehow is successful in getting the nomination through these shenanigans, she will most certainly break the Democratic Party in two for this election. I firmly believe that her endgame is to do as much damage to Obama as possible so he loses this election, and she wants to run against an incumbant McCain in 2012. That is the only thing that makes sense to me.

I just read this story this morning and was absolutely enraged. To suggest that she should stay in the race because her opposition might not live to see November is beyond despicable. I used to think Obama should give her a VP invite, but as of today - absolutely not. Disgusting.